Sometimes the trail gets pretty busy!
Hello from Vienna, Austria - home of the Opera!
As can happen when one is immersed in an environment for sometime, we are all becoming quite refined and cultured here in Europe. Nevermind that we sweat all day biking and the van smells like 'boy'; put us in the glitz and glam of the city and we clean up good and go get opera tickets. Yep, that's where we're headed tonight to see the Wiener Mozart Konzerte at the Vienna Opera House!
Before we go, we will brush up on our opera education by researching The Muppet Show, so we can mime the operatic-education and commentary of Statler and Waldorf, the two old balcony men - we don't want to appear uncouth! Stay tuned for how the night turns out - chances are one of us will pick an inopportune time to perform a bodily function...
It was David's birthday on the 23rd and we celebrated by proving our fitness levels. There was a castle. On a hill (see photos). And we had to get to it, but no one wanted to puss out and walk, so we biked it. 375 meters in 4km is steep (20% in places), by the way. David was first to the top, (we let him get ahead because it was his birthday).
It was rather impressive, actually - out of five of us, odds were on the cop, who does regular training, making it. Yet even the bike-virgin, the girl and, oh yeah, that guy with CF, made it up there. And Walter hardly even coughed - he mentioned people watching the documentary might look at him riding up well, the 20% incline bit he walked) with nary a cough and think, "Well, he doesn't have CF as bad as I do...". Walter's coughing is mostly done in the first 60 kilometers of the day, complete with the expulsion of bits of 'lung', coffee and other random bits of breakfast!
The top speed on the downhill award goes to Troy with 82km/hr, the others all topping the 60km/hr.
We will be in Vienna until Monday morning. Our rest-weekend was designed to meet up with our second support driver, Cindy, who will arrive on Sunday afternoon to help Troy with the driving. Cindy will be a great addition as we head into some more difficult countries where we don't know the languages. It's quite a job trying to navigate a vehicle into a new place every night, especially if you're used to driving on the left side of the road. Language barriers don't make it any easier when you're trying to find 5 people hotel rooms for a budget price. An extra co-pilot is always appreciated!
When we leave Austria on Monday, we should hit a country we hadn't expected and wasn't in the route details - Slovakia. Surprise!
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